Ch.

6: Social and Personality

Development in Infancy

Attachments
Perspectives on Attachment

How do attachments develop?

Variations in attachment
and long-term correlates
Issues in attachment
 Attachment
Strong affectionate ties that bind us to a
specific person
proximity-seeking
selective
provide a sense of security
 Perspectives on Attachment
Freud
Babies want oral pleasure
get attached to the person who feeds them
Erikson
Overall responsiveness more important
Leads to trust
Or mistrust
 Is Feeding Important?
Harlow & Zimmerman (1959)
Cloth versus wire
mother
all preferred cloth
mother ,even when
fed by wire.

Physical contact more

important
 Ethological
Perspectives
John Bowlby
attachments are adaptive
Ensure survival of species
e.g., imprinting (Lorenz)
is automatic
Ethological Perspectives
Humans biologically predisposed
to become attached
Babies born with behaviours that promote
attachment
adults respond to those behaviours
But emotional bond take times
must develop synchrony
 Babies Attachment to Us
Nonfocused orienting and signaling (0 2
months)
Send out proximity-promoting signals to any and
all

Focus on one or more figures (3 6 mos)

Aim signals more narrowly
Secure base behaviour (6 7 mos)
have now selected the one
Can seek proximity as well as promote
How do we know babies are
attached?
Attachment behaviours
stranger anxiety
separation anxiety

social referencing : eg.

But attachments arent created equal

Take time
are fragile
 Variations in Attachment
Ainsworths Strange Situations
 Quality of Attachments
Avoidant Ambivalent Disorganized
Secure

Distressed Appear
Behaviour
Little
confused,
In Strange Seek out at distress, But alternate
frightened;no
Situations reunion Ignore at cling/push coping
reunion away strategy?
Unresponsive Inconsistent History of
Quality Of Emotionally rejecting
Interaction available; Care-giving neglect,
Moms are Contingently abuse or
responsive other trauma